Zvi made this point the other day, and then this counterpoint which I agree with more - if you think AGI is soon but you need to keep up the exponential datacenter growth for 2-3 years (or whatever “around the corner” means for the company in question) then a land-grab on consumer ARR is a faster way to short-term revenue (and therefore higher valuations at your next round).
OAI is also doing F100 and USG work; it takes longer to book the revenue though.
By selling porn and shopping you are in some sense weakening your position with regulators which you'll need when AGI starts displacing jobs - but you can also imagine thinking that this is a second order problem and winning the race is way more urgent.
Well if they think AGI is soon with no evidence then that's not worth a whole lot
If they think AGI is soon AND they can back it up, why can't they convince investors and have them make up the difference for the next 2-3 years? Seems like a much better strategy than the pornbots and a weaker position with regulators
I mean if anything this makes it seem like they're not confident they'll get to AGI that soon.. they're not optimizing for that eventual outcome
Why does it have to be a dichotomy? Raise money from AGI-pilled investors with an AGI pitch. Raise more money from AGI-skeptics with a B2C growth story.
OAI is also doing F100 and USG work; it takes longer to book the revenue though.
By selling porn and shopping you are in some sense weakening your position with regulators which you'll need when AGI starts displacing jobs - but you can also imagine thinking that this is a second order problem and winning the race is way more urgent.